Google Wifi gets site blocker to help kids stay safe online

Google's announced it's adding a new safety feature to its family-friendly Wifi router. Site Blocking helps children stay safe online by allowing you to restrict access to approved sites. The feature knows over 8 million "non-kid-friendly" sites.

Google announced the new Wifi capability in a blog post today. It said it's meant to let parents give children digital independence while ensuring they stay protected from inappropriate online material. Like the rest of Google Wifi's capabilities, Site Blocking can be enabled with just a few taps from a smartphone.

The feature comes with a few options to let you control how blocking works. Once you've turned the filter on, the router will automatically prevent registered devices from accessing the 8 million sites identified by Google as inappropriate for kids. You can choose which family members to apply the blocking to, so young children benefit from automatic blocking while older ones are restricted from a few manually defined entries.

"Being a parent in today's connected world can be tough," said Google. "You want to give your kids the ability to learn and explore across the digital universe, but worry they might stumble upon inappropriate content along the way. With Site Blocking – the latest addition to Google Wifi's family controls – we're removing some of the worry."

The blocking filter is based on Google's SafeSearch technology, created to filter out inappropriate and explicit content from web search results. SafeSearch is now fully integrated into Wifi so Google Wifi's site blocking list will grow over time. As SafeSearch crawls the web and finds more sources of non-kid-friendly content, they'll automatically be blocked by Wifi routers with Site Blocking turned on.

Google Wifi already comes with family-oriented features to help parents monitor Internet usage and control when children can access the web. By bringing all these options into a centralised management app, Google aims to offer peace of mind that kids are protected from inappropriate content and don't overuse their devices.

Site Blocking will be added to the Google Wifi's settings app over the next few days. It'll show up automatically within the Family Wi-Fi section and can be enabled with "only a few taps." Once turned on, it remains active until you choose to disable it.